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Terror victims win Supreme Court judgment against Iran Supreme Court allows families of terrorism victims to collect Iranian assets
(35 minutes later)
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a judgment allowing families of victims of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and other terrorist attacks to collect nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for American families whose loved ones were killed by terrorism to collect nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets, but not without a warning from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. that the court was squandering its power.
The court on Wednesday ruled 6-2 in favor of more than 1,300 relatives of the 241 U.S. service members who died in the Beirut bombing and victims of other attacks that courts have linked to Iran. The justices ruled 6 to 2 that Congress had not violated the separation of powers by passing a bill that made it easier to collect the money for those whose family members were killed in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut and other attacks blamed on Iran.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion for the court rejecting efforts by Iran’s central bank to try to stave off court orders that would allow the relatives to be paid for their losses. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said the court has made clear in the past that Congress may change the law during litigation even if the change will determine the outcome of a case.
Iran’s Bank Markazi complained that Congress was intruding into the business of federal courts when it passed a 2012 law that specifically directs that the banks’ assets in the United States be turned over to the families. President Barack Obama issued an executive order earlier in 2012 blocking the Iranian central bank’s assets in the United States. [Not all victims represented in Supreme Court Iran terrorism case’]
The law, Ginsburg wrote, “does not transgress restraints placed on Congress and the president by the Constitution.” Moreover, the legislature and executive branches deserve the court’s “respectful review” when the issue involves foreign policy, she said in announcing the case from the bench.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented. “The authority of the political branches is sufficient; they have no need to seize ours,” Roberts wrote. But Roberts said Congress’s action violated the separation of powers, and he was joined in his dissent by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The decision comes as controversy swirls over pending legislation in Congress that would allow families of the Sept. 11 attacks to hold the government of Saudi Arabia liable in U.S. court. The Obama administration opposes the bill. President Barack Obama met with King Salman in Riyadh Wednesday at the start of a brief trip to the country. “At issue here is a basic principle, not a technical rule,” Roberts wrote. He said that Congress’s action had decided the case “no less certainly than if Congress had directed entry of judgment for respondents.”
Congress has repeatedly changed the law in the past 20 years to make it easier for victims to sue over state-sponsored terrorism; federal courts have ruled for the victims. But Iran has refused to comply with the judgments, leading lawyers to hunt for Iranian assets in the United States. He added: “Hereafter, with this court’s approval, Congress can unabashedly pick the winners and losers in particular pending cases. Today’s decision will indeed become a blueprint for extensive expansion of the legislative power at the judiciary’s expense.”
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit included relatives of the victims of the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the 1996 terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia which killed 19 service members, and other attacks that were carried out by groups with links to Iran. The lead plaintiff is Deborah Peterson, whose brother, Lance Cpl. James C. Knipple, was killed in Beirut. [Supreme Court Chief Justice learned sign language to swear in deaf lawyers]
Liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans in Congress, as well as the Obama administration, supported the families in the case. Bank Markazi, Iran’s central bank, had challenged a 2014 ruling by the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that the money, held in a New York bank, be given to plaintiffs to satisfy a judgment they won in 2007.
The case is Bank Markazi v. Peterson, 14-770. The suit involved survivors of 173 of the 241 killed in the Beirut attack who had secured judgments against Iran and who courts had said were entitled to more than $10 billion in compensation. When those who had secured judgments against Iran learned of bonds in a New York bank that had been frozen by the U.S. government, they went after them.
___ After lobbying by the families, Congress passed a law in the midst of the litigation that essentially said the victims were entitled to the funds.
This story has been corrected to reflect that not all those killed in the Beirut attack were Marines. The lead plaintiff in the suit was Deborah Peterson of Arlington, Va., who was seeking to avenge the killing of her brother, 20-year-old Marine Cpl. James Knipple.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The case is Bank Markazi v. Peterson.